During my recent trip to Cuba I had the opportunity to try out my Nikon 1 CX 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 lens shooting some hand-held video of various birds that were in the small wetland area that was adjacent to the hotel.

Many have been hoping Nikon would start a rebates program on lenses alone. Unfortunately, it hasn’t happened yet, but don’t run off. If you look past it, you will notice some truly staggering rebates taking place. To start with, Nikon D610 price is down to $1600. Look closer and you will notice that the camera comes with a handful of gifts, too – worth over $140, no less. And there’s the 2% rewards program, too. Oh, and free Expedited shipping. A good time to buy a full-frame Nikon camera, then, but even better if you need a lens to go with it as some of the best Nikkor lenses are now up to $400 off the original price, whilst certain cameras coupled to kit lenses add up to savings of up to $800.

The past 12 months has seen some very interesting developments in the ultra-zoom lens market with the launch of the Tamron 150-600mm f/5-6.3 VC and two new 150-600mm f/5-6.3 lenses from Sigma. These lenses, combined with the Canon 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 (both the old and new version), Nikkor 80-400 f/4.5-5.6 VR, Sigma 150-500 f/5-6.3, and Sigma 50-500 f/5-6.3 give buyers a larger selection of reasonably affordable long telephoto zoom lens options than ever before. But there is at least one aspect that is shared between all these lenses despite different brands and parameters – they are all enormous. In this particular review, however, I am going to talk about what is the smallest lens of this class for interchangeable lens cameras, and that is the diminutive (in comparison to the others) 1 Nikon CX 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 which has an equivalent field of view of 189-810mm.

In advance of my upcoming hands-on review of the 1 Nikon CX 70-300 f/4.5-5.6 telephoto zoom lens I thought readers may like to see some sample bird images. It is late in the season in Southern Ontario and many birds have already migrated. Never-the-less I was able to get a few different species captured in flight.

It is not the holiday season yet and we are already getting those hard to resist deals. Today’s deal is for the newly announced Nikon D750 (read our extensive review), which you can get together with the Nikkor 24-120mm f/4G VR lens (see our review) for $2,996.95 at B&H Photo Video and other retailers. The D750 body only costs $2,299 and the lens goes for $1,299, so that’s an instant $600 discount on the bundle.

Since Nasim has been photographing the beautiful golden aspens in Ouray County, Colorado with members of the Photography Life community for the last few days, I thought I would provide some early thoughts and samples of photos taken with the new Nikon AF-S 20mm f/1.8G ED. Once Nasim is back in town, he will post a much more detailed review of this lens. I would call this a “Nasim Light Lens Review,” but that would be giving myself too much credit!

This summer’s adventure brought us to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park. We almost went back to Banff National Park for the third year in a row, but wildlife and landscape photos from 500px and flickr, as well as conversations with fellow travelers, convinced us that it might be worthwhile to explore the beautiful state of Wyoming. We were also aware that some of Hollywood’s western classic films, such as “Shane” and “Spencer’s Mountain,” had been filmed in the area. By April, we decided to make plans for our August adventure.

At a time when the digital photography world was buzzing with new gear announcements, I managed to fall in love with some of Nikon’s very old and cheap lenses, the E Series lenses. My experience with these lenses taught me a great lesson: it is really not about the gear. It is rather about being creative with what gear we already have, despite how limited and incapable we might think of it. This was a great inspiration to me, especially with my nagging habit of lusting after the latest and greatest gear announcements. The fact that I’m writing this article goes to show that I still struggle with GAS (gear acquisition syndrome), but for a change, this is a case about some of the cheapest lenses available.

Having been testing lenses extensively for the past few years, I have seen all kinds of optical defects on even the most expensive / exotic lenses that cost thousands of dollars. One of the most common issues I have seen so far is lens de-centering, where a single optical element or a group of elements are not properly aligned with others, resulting in uneven performance across the frame. Some lenses have very slight de-centering, which only software like Imatest can reveal, while others have very noticeable de-centering (particularly lower-end zoom lenses), where a portion of the frame would always appear less sharp in images. Then there are other optical issues that also impact the overall contrast and sharpness of lens. And testing lenses with all kinds of optical issues can often be a challenging task.

Grimsby Ontario is on the raptor migration route and every year the town holds an indoor “RaptorFest” event at the local hockey arena during which various presentations of live birds, and educational initiatives are conducted. A fast, mid-range telephoto like the Nikkor 200mm f/2G VR would be the perfect lens to photograph birds during this indoor event. Like most people, I don’t have the $6,000 or so it would take to own the 200mm Nikkor…but I thought I might have a reasonable solution in my camera bag.